ANTI-VAXXERS have become notorious for their hard-line stance against vaccinating children, and now another worrying new trend is starting to emerge.
Groups campaigning against vital immunisation have started going further: harassing, intimidating and smearing the reputations of people who disagree with them.
They have sent their opponents death threats, published their private information online (a practice known as “doxxing”) and sent vicious letters to their employers.
Most disturbing of all, parents have seen their children targeted. A woman belonging to the pro-vaccination group Anti Vax Wall of Shame told Jezebel that her 11-year-old daughter had been sent a threatening Facebook message.
It read: “Your mother is a fat, ugly, lazy piece of s*** who tried to kill you. She is a bully and suffers from mental problems. She is under investigation for the hate groups and illegal computer crimes she’s committing. I hope you like your new home. You can thank me when you’re older.”
A Facebook post ridiculing a pro-vaccination campaigner. Source: Facebook
The woman said she had also received messages saying her husband had AIDS, her children were ugly and that her kids had rotting teeth.
The administrator of Anti-Vaxxers Wall of Shame, Allison Hagood, has had her address and photo posted in anti-vaxxer Facebook groups, along with comments calling her a “whore”.
Her employer, the University of Colorado, has received emails saying she shouldn’t be allowed to teach psychology. “There’s a core group that are irrational to the point of dangerousness,” said Hagood, who, for her part, insists that no posts on her “mocking” page are threatening or offensive, or identify any of the anti-vaxxers it satirises.
The frightening trend has ramped up following Thursday’s passing of a Senate Bill called SB 277 by the California assembly, which will end vaccination exemptions on personal or religious grounds.
Another woman, who did not want to be identified, told Jezebel that photos of her, her husband and her baby were tweeted by anti-vaxxers after she spoke in favour of the Bill.
Facebook groups speculated that she was affiliated with drug company Merck and discussed calling Child Protective Services on her because she had “mental health problems”.
Jodi Hicks, a lobbyist who supported the Bill in the Senate Education Committee, was also labelled an associate of Big Pharma in a YouTube video, while tweets accused her of “fighting for a pharmaceutical company at kid’s expense”, theSacramento Bee reported.
The woman running a Facebook page where the video was posted alleged that her son’s brain had been damaged by toxic mould exposure and claimed autism was caused by a build-up of pharmaceuticals, stress, electromagnetism and other “toxins”.
A group of campaigners took Hicks’ photo in the street and posted it to Twitter along with the hashtags #DevilWithTheBlueDress and #wearewatchingyou. “There’s a special place in Hell for you, just waiting,” said one tweet.
Dr Richard Pan, author of the California Bill, received death threats. Source: AP
Hicks’ husband Paul Mitchell told the newspaper: “People were on blogs saying, if somebody shoots my kids with needles, maybe we should shoot these lobbyists. And here’s the president of this association, actually inciting people to stalk my wife.”
One man was seen on video telling two anti-vaccination protesters to follow Hicks and another lobbyist “all day long”, the Sacramento Bee reported. He was sent awarning letter by the California Medical Association, which read: “Your video instructing people to stalk the lobbyists has the potential to turn an already volatile situation into an explosive one with very grave consequences.”
The CMA attacked these anti-vaxxers’ “irresponsible rhetoric” and “threatening activity aimed at our employees”, adding that members of the medical group had been encouraging staff to travel in pairs and lock doors when discussing the SB 277 bill.
Dorit Reiss, a law professor at UC Hastings who has written extensively about vaccination, was also labelled a stooge for Big Pharma by anti-vaccination blog Age of Autism, and likened to genocidal dictators.
At anti-vaccination rallies in California, protesters compared the state to Nazi Germany, the LA Times reported.
An assembly member who opposed the Bill said that requiring children to be vaccinated was like sending them to a concentration camp, according to theSacramento Bee.
Alex Jones from conspiracy site InfoWars claimed California was “following in Nazi footsteps” and “pushing mandatory vaccines — practically at gunpoint!”
The extremist anti-vaxxers come from all walks of life. They can be left-wing, natural health fans; anti-abortion groups; or conservative political parties. California members of the Nation of Islam have also come out against SB 277, and Scientologist actress Jenna Elfman took part in an anti-SB 277 rally, claiming the Bill infringed parental rights.
In Australia, anti-vaxxers have been criticised for spreading disease and misinformation — bad enough in itself. But the more violent side is starting to emerge, with one anti-vaxxer Facebook group posting an article demanding the death penalty for doctors who administer vaccinations, and others calling for vaccine advocates to be shot.
A doctor who emailed an anti-vaxxer mailing list with a pro-vaccination story received aggressive insults and death threats in return, via email and Facebook.
In 2013, Dr Andrew McDonald told the NSW parliament: “The police have been called to my office on one occasion following threatening emails after I raised concerns about the practices of the Australian Vaccination Network [an anti-vaccination group that has since been renamed the Australian Vaccination-skeptics Network].”
It may only be a matter of time before this dangerous and threatening behaviour goes even further.
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